Peter's Game
by SirPancake
Summary: What if Peter had killed Ender when they were playing buggers and astronauts? What if the times for a brilliant young mind at battle school got so desperate that they called Peter?
1. Peter

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"I didn't know it would hurt him." Said Peter in a very sincere voice. He let a single tear slide down his cheek.

His mom and dad just look down at Peter with Valentine sobbing between them."He Killed him on purpose." Sobbed Valentine"He's evil!"

Mom just stroked Valentine's hair trying to control her own emotions. "Valentine" She said in comforting voice."Peter would never do a thing like this on purpose."

Valentine then got up and left the room while saying."He was planning to kill me too!"

Mom and dad just looked at each other and then down at Ender's limb and lifeless body. Dad then said" Can you tell us what happened exactly again?"

Peter nodded yes, let a few tears fall down his cheeks and began."We were play buggers and astronauts. I was the astronauts and he was the bugger. He shot me with the toy gun and ran. I chased after him to get him with my toy gun. He was hiding behind a shelf and jumped out at me. I tackled him and pointed my gun at him. Then I asked him where his bugger base was and he didn't respond. I asked again and he still didn't respond. I stood up yelled Ender. He still didn't answer. I knelt to feel his heart and it wasn't beating. That when I called you guys and you know the rest."

He let more tears fall. "Can I please go to my room? I need some quiet."He said in a mournful voice. "Of course honey" Mom said.

He then went down the hall but not to his room he went to Valentine's. He didn't bother knocking on the door he just went right in. Valentine was lying on her bed face down, still sobbing. She looked up when peter came in."What do you want."

Peter sat on a chair that was in her room and said"I just wanted to say I am sorry for what I did to Ender." "No your NOT! You couldn't be less sorry. You killed him on purpose!"

Peter walked up to her grabbed her shoulder and whispered in her ear"Prove I did it"He then tighten his grip and said" And I could kill you just as easily too"

Valentine threw his hand off of herself and slapped him in face with all the force she could muster. Peter then backed away looking innocent. Valentine then said in a calm voice"Why?"

Peter didn't answer he just walked away and went to his room. When he got in his room he couldn't suppress a giant grin. He said to himself"That is what the little bugger lover gets!"

He looked around the room and found Ender's desk since it was Ender's room too. He took it and smashed it with glee. He picked up the remains of it and put them in the bottom of a waste basket so mom and dad wouldn't then just laid on his bed still smiling. He fell asleep after a while.

When Peter woke up it was 7:00 in the morning. He walked to the kitchen and on his way he saw Ender's body was no longer where it was. Peter wondered where they moved it to. He grabbed a glass from a cabinet and got some water it was then that Valentine came into the kitchen. Her face was red and puffy like she had cried.

Peter looked at her and said in a sarcastic voice."I'm really am sorry what I did sis." S he looked up at him and said" I hate you."

Peter thought for a moment then said."You don't hate me you hate what I did. There is a difference."

Valentine flipped him off then went away. Peter went back to his room and started playing a game on his desk.

After a while he heard mom yell."Peter, can you please come out here?" Peter set his desk down and start to rub his eyes to make look as if he had just been crying. Peter found his mom standing in the dining room with a man in a suit.

"Peter, this man is here to see you." The man held a hand out to peter and said"I am Colonel Graff. I would like to speak to you."


	2. Graff

Peter shook his hand. Graff lowered his hand and said."We would like Peter to come to Battle School."

Peter's looked up at Graff suppressing a smile."Really?"

Mom looked to Graff and said."It's not very kind of you, to let us think for years now that you didn't want him and then to

take him anyways."

"For all children the choice is made when there born that they will be tested for Battle School. Many don't pass the testand we don't want them but we have the ability to take any child."

Mom looked concerned."Does that mean you are just going to walk away with him?"

"That depends,"Said Graff

"On what?"

"On whether Peter want's to come."

Mom starting crying and said."So it's voluntary after all, how sweet!"

"I think," said Graff. "Peter and I should have a private conversation."

"No," Mom said.

"I won't take him without letting you speak to him again," said Graff."And you really can't stop me"

Mom glared at Graff for a moment, then got up and left the room. She closed the door behind as she left.

"Peter," Graff said, "if you come with me, you won't be back here for a long time. There aren't any vacations from Battle School. No visitors, either. A full course of training until your sister will be a woman when you see her again. You'll be strangers. You'll still love her, Peter, but you won't know her."

"I don't love her," said Peter.

"I know you Peter, I have watched you for many years now. And you do love her. You were just jealous. Jealous that she paid attention to Ender, not you." Tears came to Peter eyes, real tears this time. He did love his sister but he was jealous. Peter turned and wiped the tears from his eyes, then turned to Graff and said."What of Mom and Dad?"

"You won't miss them at all. You have never show any true love or care for them. They will miss you but not for as long as you'd think."

Peter thought for a moment. Was it true? Would Mom and Dad really not miss him? Graff saw that Peter was think and said."They do love you but they won't miss you."

Peter was didn't want to think about missing his family so he change the subject."What is it like there, at Battle School?"

"Hard work. Studies, just like school here, except we put you into mathematics and computers much more heavily. Military history. Strategy and tactics. And above all, the Battle Room."

The name seemed to spark Peter's interest."What's that?"

"War games. All the boys are organized into armies. day after day, in zero gravity, there are mock battles. Nobody gets hurt, but winning and losing matter. Everybody starts as a common soldier, taking orders. Older boys are your officers, and it's their duty to train you and command you in battle. More than that I can't tell you. It's like playing bugger and astronauts-except that you have weapons that work, and fellow soldiers fighting beside you, and your whole future and the future of the human race depends on how well you learn, how well you fight. It's a hard life, and you won't have a normal childhood."

"All boys?"

"A few girls not many though. They don't often pass the tests to get in."

"Why have I been accepted after all these years?"

"We were going to take Ender but you killed him. He was a mix of you and Valentine. He had most of the good parts of both of you and very few of the bad ones. And now since we can't have him, we are desperate for someone who can beat the bugger at this point."

"That is why?"

"Peter, if it were a matter of choosing the best and happiest future for you, I'd tell you to stay home. Stay here, grow up, be happy. Battle School is one of the worst things. But we need you. The bugger may seem like just a game to you now, Peter, but they damn near wiped us out last time. They had us cold, outnumbered, and outweaponed. They only thing that saved us was that we had the mast brilliant military commander we ever found. Call it fate, call it God, Call it damn fool luck, we had Mazer Rackham."

"But we don't have him now, Peter. We've scraped together everything mankind could produce, a fleet that makes the one they sent against us last time seem like a bunch of kids playing in a swimming pool. We have some new weapons, too. But it might not be enough, even so. Because in the eighty years since the last war, they've had as much time to prepare as we have. We need the best we can get, and we need them fast. Maybe you're not going to work out for us, and maybe you are. Maybe you'll break down under pressure, maybe it'll ruin your life, maybe you'll hate me for coming to your house today. But if there's a chance that because you're with the fleet, mankind might survive and the buggers might leave us alone forever-then I'm going to ask you to do it. To come with me."

Peter let all off this sink in. Could he leave earth? Leave to go to a place that was very hard. And then he thought of the films of the buggers that everyone had to see at least once a year. The Scathing of China. The Battle of the Belt. Death and suffering and terror. And Mazer Rackham and his brilliant maneuvers, destroying an enemy fleet twice his size and his firepower, using little human ships that seemed so frail and weak. Like children fighting with grown-ups. And we won?

He then thought everyone admires Mazer because of what he did. Why can't I do that? Beat the buggers once and for all. Then I would get all the admiration."I want to go."

Graff nodded."You can change you mind. Up until the time when you get in my car with me, you can change you mind. After that, you stay at the pleasure of International Fleet. Do you understand that?"

Peter nodded.

"All right lets tell them."

Mom cried. Dad held Peter tight. Peter wondered where he had been when Graff first was nowhere to be seen.

There was nothing to pack. No belongings to take. " The school provides everything you need, from uniforms to school supplies. And as for toys-there's only one game."

"Good-bye," Peter said to his mom and dad. He walked out the door with Graff.

"I love you, Peter!" Mom called.

"We'll write to you!"Father said.

And he got into the car that was waiting for him.


	3. Launch

There were nineteen other boys in his launch. Peter was two heads taller than all of them. They filed out of the bus and into the elevator. Most of them talked and joked and laughed but a few were staring up at peter and pointing. Peter kept his silence, he saw no reason he should talk to any of them.

Peter noticed how Graff and other officer were watching them. Analyzing. Everything we do means something, Peter knew that. He wondered if he Should talk to some of the younger boys. Let the officers analyze something that was not true.

They had dress him in a uniform, all in a single piece; it felt funny not to have a belt cinched around his waist. He felt baggy and naked, dressed like that. There were TV cameras going, perched like birds on the shoulders of crouching, prowling men. The men moved slowly, catlike, so the camera motion would be smooth.

Peter then thought about how hungry he was. They don't let you eat for twenty-four hours before the launch.

"Go up the ladder one at a time," said an officer. "When you come to an aisle with empty seats, take one. There aren't any window seats."

It was a joke. The other boy laughed. Peter laughed as well. Not because he found it funny because he wanted to see how Graff and the other officers would react. Peter was near the end of the line. The TV cameras followed them the whole way. He wondered if mom and dad were watching. Or Valentine.

He walked a short bridge to the door in the shuttle. He noticed that the wall to his right was carpeted like a floor. He immediately became disoriented. The moment he thought of the wall as a floor, he began to feel like he was walking on a wall. He got to the ladder, and noticed that the vertical surface behind it was also carpeted. I am climbing up the floor. Hand over hand, step by step.

Peter walked to an empty and sat silently. The other boys were bouncing on their seat a little, poking and pushing, shouting. Peter found the straps, and figured out how to fit them together within a few seconds. Peter looked around now until he saw Graff on the ladder.

"Oh, already figured it out," Said Graff.

"Of course I did. I am nine, remember?" Said Peter sarcastically "Are you coming with us?

"I don't usually come down for recruiting," Graff said. "I'm kind of in charge there. Administrator of the school. Like a principal. They told me I had to come back or I'd lose my job," He smiled.

Peter didn't smile back. He felt uncomfortable with Graff. Graff was bad. And he was the principal of the school. He would be good to have as a friend but Peter didn't like him.

Adults helped the other boys belt themselves in place, those who hadn't done like Peter did. Then they waited for an hour while a TV at the front of the shuttle introduced them to the shuttle flight, the history of space flight, and their possible future with the great starships of the I.F. Very boring stuff. Peter has seen films like this at least a dozen times.

Except that he had not been belted into a seat inside the shuttle. Hanging upside down from the belly of Earth.

After the film was over they launched.

The launch wasn't that bad. A little scary. Some jolting, a few moments of panic that this might be the first failed launch since the early days of this shuttle. The movies hadn't made it clear how much violence you could experience, lying on your back in a soft chair.

Then it was over, and he was really hanging by the straps, no gravity anywhere.

Peter had yet to orient himself. He was gagging like a lot of other boys. Peter now understood why they had been forbidden to eat for twenty-four hours. vomiting in null gravity would not be fun.

Peter saw Graff come up the ladder backwards, as if he were climbing down to the front of the shuttle, then Graff hook his feet under a rung and pushed off with his hands, so that suddenly he swung upright, as if this were an ordinary airplane.

Peter then just thought of Graff's head as up, and that meant everything that was above Graff's head Peter saw as up. He then wanted to see if it would work and though of Graff's feet as up, and it worked.

There was silence for most of the launch. A voice over the speaker them they were approaching the school; it took twenty minutes to decelerate and dock. Peter was one of the last boys off the shuttle. Graff was waiting at the end of a narrow tube that led from the shuttle to the heart of the Battle School.

"Was it a good flight, Peter?" Graff asked cheerfully.

"It was fine." Was Peter's response.

"Peter, since you are coming here a lot older than most of the others kids that come here," said Graff "You will do school work that is at your level but you will need to stay behind and practice in the battle room with the launchies untill you know how to have control in the battle room."

Peter had never thought about where they would place until just now. Does that mean he would be in a dorm room with the launchies too? "Does that mean I will be in the same dorm with the launchies too?"

"For a while until you learn to have complete control in null gravity. I have set you up to have extra course so you may be out of there as quickly as possible and be a soldier in games."

Peter did not like the idea of having to stay with 19 little kids until he could have control in null gravity. Peter looked over to the other boys, they were following someone.

"You better get going," said Graff "You need to know where your dorm is."


	4. Chapter 4

The ceiling was low in the room. Peter's hair brushed the ceiling as he walked in. This room was made for six-year-old not nine. Most of the boys had chosen a bunk already. Peter chose one that was on the bottom, near the middle of the room.

He sat down and looked in the locker that stood open at the foot of the bunk. There was a paper taped to the inside of the door.

**PLACE YOUR HAND ON THE SCANNER  
AT THE END OF YOUR BUNK  
AND SPEAK YOU NAME TWICE.**

Peter found the scanner, a sheet of opaque plastic. He put his right hand on it and said, "Peter Wiggin, Peter Wiggin."

The scanner glowed green for a moment. Peter closed his locker and tried to reopen it. He couldn't. Then he put his hand on the scanner and said," Peter Wiggin." The locker popped open. So did three other compartments.

One of them contained four jumpsuits like the one he was wearing except they were smaller. Peter guess the one they had given him before the launch was a bigger on they had lying around and he assumed he would get proper sized ones at a later time. Another compartment contained a small desk, just like the one Peter had at home.

The largest compartment contained what looked like a spacesuit at first glance, complete with helmet and gloves. But it wasn't. There was no airtight seal. Still, it would effectively cover the whole body. It was thickly padded. It was also a little stiff.

And there was a pistol within. A laser gun it looked like, since the end was solid, clear glass. But surely they wouldn't let children have lethal weapons-

"Not laser," said a man. Peter looked up. It was one he hadn't seen before. A young and kind-looking man. "But it has a tight enough beam. Well-focused. You can aim it and make a three-inch circle of light on a wall a hundred meters off."

"What's it for?" Peter asked.

"One of the games we play during recreation. Does anyone else have his locker open" The man looked around. "I mean, have you followed the directions and coded in your voice and hands? You can't get into your lockers until you do. This room is your home for the first year or so here at Battle School, so get the bunk you want and stay with it. Dinner in seven minutes. Follow the lighted dots on the floor. Your color code is red yellow yellow-whenever you're assigned a path to follow, it will be red yellow yellow, three dots side by side-go where those lights indicate. What's your color boys?"

"Red, yellow, yellow."

"Very good. My name is Dap. I'm your mom for the next few months."

Everyone laughed.

"Laugh all you like, but keep it in mind. If you get lost in school, which is quite possible, don't go opening doors. Some of them lead outside." More laughter." Instead just tell someone that your mom is Dap, and they will call me. Or tell them your color code, and they will light up a path for you to get home. If you have a problem, come talk to me. Remember, I'm the only person here who's paid to be nice to you. But not too nice. Give me any lip and I'll break your face. Okay?"

They laughed again. Dap had a room full of friends. frightened children are so easy to win.

"Which way is down, anybody tell me?"

"Okay, that's true. But that direction is towards the _outside_. The ship is spinning, and that's what makes it feel like that is down. The floor actually curves in _that_ direction. Keep going long enough that way, and you come back to where you started. Except don't try it. Because up that way is teachers' quarters and up that way is the bigger kids. And bigger kids don't like lauchies butting in. You might get pushed around. In fact, you _will_ get pushed around. And when you do, don't come crying to me. Got it? This is Battle School not nursery school.

""What are we supposed to do, then?" asked a boy. a really small black kid who had the top bunk right above Peter's.

"If you don't like getting pushed around, figure it out for yourself what to do about it. But I warn you-murder is strictly against the rules. So is any deliberate injury. Anything like that happens, somebody ices out. You got it?"

"What's icing out?" asked a boy near the back of the room.

"Ice. put out in the cold. Sent Earthside. Finished at Battle School."

Peter thought about what all Dap had said. Though Peter knew it would be difficult he would not cause any harm to the launchies that surrounded him. At least not yet, not until the teachers saw him as a golden boy. Then he could cause harm to anyone that pissed him off. Peter had a feeling a lot of people would piss him off but he would be patient.

"So, boys, if any of you are thinking of being troublemakers, at least be clever about it. Okay?"

Dap left.

They went to the mess hall. Peter sat away from all the other boys. The other boys were talking about things-the big score board on one wall, the food, the bigger kids. Peter didn't want to talk no, he wanted to plan the best way to become a golden boy, then he could do whatever the hell he wanted.

After thinking out a plan, Peter admired what the other boys already had.

The scoreboards were team standings. Win-loss records, with the most recent scores. Some of the older boys apparently had bets on the most recent games. Two teams, Manticore and ASP, had no recent score-these boxes were flashing. Peter assumed that meant they were playing at the moment.

He noticed that the older boys were divided into groups, according to the uniforms they wore. Some with different uniform were talking together, but generally the groups each had their own area. Launchies-their own group, and two or three next older groups-all had plain blue uniform. But the big kids, the ones that were on teams, they had were wearing much more flamboyant clothing.

An older boy came to sit by Peter. He looked like he was twelve of thirteen.

"Hi," he said.

"Hi," Peter said"

"I'm Mick."

"Peter."

"Were you given steroids or something? You two heads taller than all the other lauchies."

Peter shrugged. He had to hold his tongue as annoying as this kid was being, Peter was not going to get iced.

"I noticed you eating all alone. Every launch has one like that. Kid that nobody takes to right away. Sometimes I think the teachers do it on purpose. The teachers aren't 'll notice that."

"Ever think I just don't want to talk to any of them?"

"Listen, I'm doing you a favor. Make friends. Be a leader. Suck up. Kiss butts if you've got to, but if the other guys despise you-you are nothing more than a fart to them."

Peter nodded. Even though he agreed with nothing Mick had just told him.

"Naw, you don't know nothing." Mick said, then he walked away back to his table.

Peter just thought to himself, why the hell bother me if you didn't think I would understand your lame advice.

Peter ate silently for the rest for dinner.

That night, when the lights went dim, he could hear several boy whimpering for their mothers or fathers or dogs. Peter then thought of Valentine. He could hear her voice. It was so clear, as if she was right there. I'll be old when I see her again. Why did I say yes? What was?I such a fool for? He had never missed or realized how much he loved his sister until now. He had alway been annoying and cruel when he was around her, but it was true what Graff had said. He was jealous that she loved Ender more than him.

Now he thought of Ender. The brother he killed on purpose. And for what reason? Jealousy. Envy. Before Ender was born Peter and Val got along fine, but when he was born they drifted apart. No longer friends as well as siblings.

Peter cried. For the second time he shed real tears, not the fake one while he was telling the story of Ender's death. He cried until Dap came to the door that night and moved quietly among the beds, Touching a hand here, a forehead there. Where he went there was more crying, not touch of kindness. in this frightening place was enough to push some over the edge into tears. Not Peter, though. When Dap came over his face was dry. Peter did not anyone to see him in a true state of weakness.


End file.
